This paper shows that long-term stress hormones in scalp hair are higher in people who are suffering from metabolic health risks. Moreover, this association was most prominent in young adults, indicating that they might be more vulnerable to the harmful effects of long-term stress on the body than older adults.

Specifically, we looked at over 1,400 individuals and found that higher levels of cortisone—a stress hormone—in hair samples were higher in those study participants who had the metabolic syndrome at the time of hair cutting, especially the younger ones. The metabolic syndrome is a cluster of health conditions including:

• high blood pressure
• excess belly fat
• abnormal cholesterol
• high triglyceride levels
• high blood sugar levels

Unlike blood or saliva, which reflect short-term stress, hair provides a months-long history of hormone levels, making it a better measure of chronic stress. Our findings opens the door to using hair samples as an easy and noninvasive way to identify people—especially younger adults—who may be silently heading toward serious heart and metabolic issues. However, we need long-term (longitudinal) studies to confirm our findings and better understand how well these hair-based stress measures can predict future health outcomes.